A method is described for production of an electrical contact on SiC.
Silicon carbide (SiC) represents a highly promising semiconductor material, in one embodiment for power and very high frequency electronics, because of its excellent physical characteristics. It is distinguished in comparison to silicon, which has become industrially established as a semiconductor material, by an electrical breakdown field strength that is approximately 10 times greater, as well as band gap and thermal conductivity values that are about 3 times greater, therefore allowing particular advantages with respect to power losses, power density and thermal load capacity. During the development of electronic components composed of SiC substrates, such as SiC Schottky diodes or SiC-MOSFETs (SiC Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors), conductive contacts must be formed on the SiC substrates in order to make electrical contact with and to gain access to components produced in these substrates. A contact-formation process carried out by heat-treatment of the SiC substrate, for example an oven process or an RTP (Rapid Thermal Processing) process results in a temperature budget which can lead to restrictions in the process integration for formation of the semiconductor component, since there may be further processes which are adversely influenced by such a high temperature budget.
A production method for an electrical contact on an SiC substrate which allows more process flexibility would be desirable.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.